Monday, May 14, 2007

The article below was posted at the BBC News Webs site - Last Updated: Wednesday, 18 May, 2005, 01:08 GMT 02:08 UK. Searching about 2007 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights to verify how the news was spread I stumble upon Seoul Times and saw the article that says it came from BBC News.

This week is the big May Event here in Gwangju City, the bastion of democratization in Korea. May 18 is the highlight of the event especially for the May 18 Memorial Foundation that awards the yearly Gwangju Prize for Human Rights.

Linngering Legacy of Korean MassacreBy Becky BranfordBBC News

A quarter of a century on, Koreans are remembering one of the ugliest episodes in their history.

In May 1980, hundreds of civilians were massacred by soldiers in the south-western city of Kwangju after rising up against military rule.

Although it was brutally put down, the Kwangju Uprising is now seen by many as a pivotal moment in the South Korean struggle for democracy in the long period of dictatorship following the Korean war.

The Kwangju Uprising lit the fuse of the dynamite stick of democracyHwang Sok-yongKorean novelist and former dissident

And some contend the uprising had important ramifications which are still being felt now, both inside Korea and beyond its borders.

There is a sombre monument and museum dedicated to the massacre in Kwangju, and the anniversary of the beginning of the siege on 18 May is now a public holiday in Korea.

Batons and bayonets

The protests in Kwangju in the spring of 1980 were not unusual.

The country was being swept by a tide of demonstrations, mainly by students, in the wake of the assassination of the dictator Park Chung Hee and the military coup which brought General Chun Doo-hwan to power in his place.

It was the sheer, open brutality of the response of Korean paratroops which proved decisive.

The paratroops charged crowds with batons and bayonets, stripped students and other citizens down to their underwear in the streets before beating them, and fired indiscriminately into crowds.

This brutality drew outraged ordinary citizens into the struggle, creating a mass movement of resistance which forced the military to retreat from the city for five days, leaving the city in full control of the residents.

The military retook the city on 27 May, crushing the citizens' resistance in an overwhelming show of force.

The final toll of those who lost their lives is still unknown, as it is believed the military dumped bodies in mass graves or lakes. Estimates today range from 500 to 2,000.

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Irom Sharmila Video

Irom Sharmila is a young woman of Manipur who has been on a fast-to-death for nearly 7 years now. She has been demanding the removal of a brutal law from her land. Manipur is a north-east Indian state (bordering Myanmar), riven for decades by insurgency and armed separatist movements. The Government of India has attempted to control the situation militarily, granting drastic powers to the security forces. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act enforced in the region lets people be arrested, shot and even killed - on suspicion alone. But Sharmila is willing to stake everything -- even her life -- to restore justice and dignity to her people.

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Anecdote: Gwangju Prize for Human Rights

The contrast between Gwangju and Manipur experience is indeed striking! At a time when the people of Gwangju was breaking away from the shackles of an oppressive regime in 1980, Manipur was sliding down towards a nightmarish experiences in the shadows of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

By 2000, a certain stability was achieved in Korean democratization process and the spirit of democracy started spreading across Asia through the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights. The same year in Manipur, having exhausted all judicial and international remedies available with the UN, Sharmila resorted to indefinite hunger-strike demanding the repeal of the draconian Act. Seven years later in 2007, the Foundation took notice of Sharmila's struggles and awarded her the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights.

From Manipur perspective, in awarding this prestigious prize to Sharmila, the International Community is not only taking notice of the relentless struggle of the people of Manipur for a dignified life but also extending a fraternal solidarity.